Past
Grantees

CHILDREN'S THEATRE COMPANY (CTC), Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $22,500 in support of the Playground program. The mission of CTC is to create extraordinary theater experiences that educate, challenge, and inspire young people. CTC develops fresh material through commissioning and developmental processes to build a canon of work that raises the standard for the field. Playground is an intensive developmental studio designed to support the creation of new works by emerging playwrights who are members of New Dramatists, New York City.

Jerome Foundation Directors authorized a grant of $10,000 to CLUBBED THUMB, New York Citiy, in support of the development and production of new works by emerging playwrights based in New York City and/or Minnesota. Clubbed Thumb commissions, develops, and produces funny, strange, and provocative new plays by living American writers. Its primary development programs are Summerworks and New Play Boot Camps. Summerworks supports playwrights in the creation of new works. It produces a four-week season consisting of three productions. New Play Boot Camps are script revision workshops in which a playwright produces three drafts in four sessions, concluding with a public reading of the work-in-progress. Throughout the year, Clubbed Thumb cultivates plays through both in-house and public readings.

COFFEE HOUSE PRESS, Minneapolis, Minnesota, received $20,000 in support of the publication of three books by emerging authors. Founded in 1984, the mission of Coffee House Press is to publish exciting, vital, and enduring authors of this time; to delight and inspire readers; to contribute to the cultural life of its community; and to enrich literary heritage. By building on the best traditions of publishing in the book arts, it produces books that celebrate innovation in the craft of writing, the infinite possibilities of the imagination, and the many authentic voices of the American experience. Jerome dollars support emerging writers based in New York City and Minnesota

The COUNCIL OF LITERARY MAGAZINES AND PRESSES (CLMP), New York City, received a two-year grant of $92,000 in support of FACE OUT: Maximizing the Visibility of Emerging Artists. CLMP supports and promotes non-commercial literary publishing to ensure that readers and writers are well served by a strong and vibrant literary culture. As the service and advocacy organization for independent literary publishers, CLMP services and resources are designed to develop each members publishing capacity to increase marketing and organizational skills, while promoting communication and shared learning across the field. FACE OUT is a re-grant and technical assistance program for New York City small presses and the emerging writers they publish. Publishers based in the five boroughs of New York City apply with New York City-based emerging writers for books scheduled to be published and marketed over a two-year period. Funds are used to build emerging author/publisher relationships, including author tours and author-focused marketing initiatives. Workshops/roundtables and evaluation sessions provide technical assistance and peer learning through networking. CLMP gathers information learned in FACE OUT and produces case studies that benefit other independent publishers and emerging writers.

A commitment of $8,780 was made to the Council on Foundations, a national membership organization that serves community foundations, corporate grantmakers, family foundations, global philanthropy, and independent foundations. It has approximately 2,000 members and strives to increase the effectiveness, stewardship, and accountability of the sector while providing members with the services and support they need for success.

ALICE COX received $8,000 for Poisonberry, a short fiction film about Minnie, an Asian-American child whose estranged father kidnaps her from her loving, yet reckless young mother. Separated since Minnie was an infant, her father faces deportation proceedings, while her mother barely makes ends meet haplessly pursuing an acting career. In the film, Minnie finds she has to make do on her own as best she can with her fathers ultimate abandonment and her mothers ongoing cycle of codependent relationships. Poisonberry is about a child who turns a corner after tasting first-hand the plight of struggling adults. The films title is inspired by a quote from Salman Rushdies Midnights Children, because children are the vessels into which adults pour their poison...

ENRICO CULLEN received a grant for SALT IN THE AIR, a feature-length documentary that tells the stories of salt miners, mine engineers, doctors, patients and residents of Solotvyno, a small Ukrainian village located deep in the Carpathian Mountains on the border with Romania. A huge salt mine with purportedly the purest salt on Earth exists beneath the town, but also looms large in the towns future. The salt is so pure that inhaling it can virtually cure asthma in children. Its also a highly valuable resource for this poor community. Today, the salt mine is collapsing, the miners have held protests, and the mine director was recently fired. Members of the Ukrainian presidential cabinet have held high level talks about what to do with the mine. In short, the coming months and years will spell out Solotvynos future. Does the phrase, No salt mine was ever abandoned by Ferdinand Braudel (Civilization and Capital, 1979) carry within it the struggles of the past and a prediction for the future; namely, that the Solotvyno Salt Mine will be sustained? In a sense, Solotvyno serves as a metaphor for the broader relationship of human beings to Earth. Can we transform the way we live so that our darker, exploitative impulses serve a higher purpose? This film will examine that question and more.

The Jerome Foundation made a three-year commitment totaling $25,000 to the PEW CHARITABLE TRUSTS, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in support of the operation of the Cultural Data Project in New York State, and a pledge, with conditions to be met, of a three-year grant of $35,000 to the Pew Charitable Trusts to launch the Cultural Data Project in Minnesota, providing sufficient funds are raised from other grantmakers. The Cultural Data project is an online management tool designed to strengthen arts and cultural organizations. It gathers reliable, longitudinal data on the sector. This emerging national standard enables participating organizations to track trends and benchmark their progress through sophisticated reporting tools, empowers researchers and advocates with information to make the case for arts and culture, and equips funders with data to plan and evaluate grantmaking activities more effectively. The CDP was launched in Pennsylvania in 2004 and has grown to include Maryland, California, Illinois, New York, Massachusetts, Ohio, and Michigan. It is currently being considered by other states.

JENNIFER DANOS, sculptor and installation artist, Minneapolis, Minnesota, will travel to Rome, Florence, Pistoia, Biella, Bologna, Milan, Prato, Rimini, and Turin, Italy, conducting research on how the most central elements of her own artistic inquiry function in Italy as compared to Minnesota; understand how the long, rich, and overwhelming history of art affects contemporary artists working there; and find residencies in Italy where she can further develop those ideas and her practice.

CARRIE DASHOW, interdisciplinary artist, Brooklyn, New York, will travel to Auroville, India, to examine the basis of its judicial system, which empowers the individual. Dashow wants to learn about the laws of this international spiritual community and bring back new possibilities for her art work. This immersion experience contributes to and expands a continuum of performance and research, Municipal Works, in which each piece poses inquiry to authority, and desire for community and involvement in public space.

Previous recipient JASON DaSILVA was awarded support for When I Walk, a feature-length documentary that chronicles DaSilvas rapid loss of mobility over a five-year period, his emotional journey along the way, and his pursuit of a new identity. Five years ago, after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS), DaSilva discovered there were few stories or personal accounts documenting the physical and emotional experience of dealing with the disease. While there is an array of resources written from a medical perspective, there are no documentary narratives exploring the unusual and surreal experience of watching your body rapidly deteriorate. Given that MS is the most common neurological disease, DaSilva found this surprising. He wanted to understand the journey of those who had gone before him, yet there were few accounts. His doctors were telling him that in five years he would be in a wheelchair, possibly without eyesight, and perhaps also losing the ability to use his hands. At the time, he did not believe the doctors. Yet at the same time, being a filmmaker, he decided to turn the camera on himself and begin recording. Now after five years, some of what was foretold has come true. He is now in a wheelchair and has lost all mobility in his legs. Fortunately, however, he has captured the experience through this documentary film, which he wishes to share with others.

DARREN DOMINQUE DAVIS, composer, Minneapolis, Minnesota, will travel to Berlin, Germany, renowned center for electronic music, to explore the electronic music scene and to immerse himself in a foreign urban environment as a means of experiencing the themes of alienation, solitude, and otherness, as inspiration for new work.

DIXON PLACE, New York City, received $15,000 in support of the Mondo Cane! Commissioning Program and the Artist-in-Residence Program. A laboratory for performing and literary artists, Dixon Place is dedicated to supporting the creative process by presenting original works of theater, dance, music, puppetry, literature, and performance art at all stages of development. In the Mondo Cane! Commissioning Program, Dixon Place commissions individual artists and ensembles to develop and present new works, and provides two months of rehearsal and workshop time for the artists, followed by performances. The Artist in Residence Program offers emerging artists opportunities to develop bold new performance and interdisciplinary collaborations over time, culminating in workshop performances. The program encourages risk-taking in a supportive professional environment. It serves emerging artists with space and support.

DIXON PLACE/OPEN CHANNELS, New York City, received $29,000 in support of the Mondo Cane! Commissioning Program and Artist-In-Residence Program for Emerging Artists. A laboratory for artists, Dixon Place is dedicated to supporting the creative process by presenting original works of theater, dance, music, puppetry, literature, and performance art at all stages of development. The Mondo Cane! Commissioning Program supports eight artists or ensembles each year for the development and presentation of new works of theater, music, dance, and performance art. The commissions are coupled with two months of rehearsal and workshop time followed by performances. The Artist-in-Residence Program provides emerging artists with opportunities to develop bold new performance and interdisciplinary collaborations over a concentrated time period. Four artists-in-residence receive stipends and free workshop space over a three-month period.

THE FIELD, New York City, as fiscal sponsor for FAYE DRISCOLL DANCE GROUP, Brooklyn, New York, received $8,000 in support of the development and production of notnot (working title). Founded by artists for artists, The Field is dedicated to providing strategic services to performing artists and companies in New York City and beyond. It fosters creative exploration, stewards innovative management strategies, and helps artists reach their fullest potential. Faye Driscoll is a choreographer who investigates new forms of theatrical experience aimed to provoke feeling, stimulate the senses, and activate the mind. The new evening-length work notnot (working title) examines the tension among beauty, power, and desire. Driscoll will probe the subject of beauty as it is manifested through the ineffable promise of romantic love, as a perpetual dangling carrot, as myth, in the blurred power domain between varied cultural definitions of masculine/feminism, and as the performative aspect of inevitably dissolving selves.

ENSEMBLE STUDIO THEATRE, New York City, received $16,000 in support of the 2011 Youngblood Program. Ensemble Studio Theatre is dedicated to creating a vibrant community for the creation, development, and production of new works to replenish the American theater repertoire. It balances a vision pairing performer and director training and investigation with an interest in developing new works by playwrights. Among its multiple program tracks, EST operates the Youngblood Program. Its current roster includes 20 playwright members representing a cross-section of some of the finest talent in that age group in the country. Playwrights are selected through an open, competitive process and may remain in the group until they turn 30. Emerging playwrights receive an array of opportunities designed to stimulate the creation of new works in a supportive peer environment, sustained by participation in a large and active membership theater with constant opportunities to see work by other artists. The backbone of Youngblood is a weekly meeting in which writers in the group convene to read new work, give feedback, and discuss the current theater scene and their place in it.

BART EVERLY received support for Velvet Vision, a feature-length documentary about photographer and filmmaker James Bidgood, whose iconic work of the 1960s helped define the burgeoning movement of gay photography and film. His beefcake photographs were unlike any other at the time, featuring elaborate fantasy scenarios drenched in lush, saturated color. His film Pink Narcissus was shrouded in mystery upon its release, having been credited to Kenneth Anger and Andy Warhol, among others, until the late 1980s when it was revealed that it was actually the work of one man, James Bidgood. Bidgood recently received a grant from Creative Capital to shoot a new series of gay photographs. Velvet Vision follows him in the process of shooting again as well as delving into his past as window dresser, drag artist and costume designer.

FRACTURED ATLAS, New York City, serving as fiscal sponsor for independent artist REID FARRINGTON, Brooklyn, New York, received $9,000 in support of the development and production of a new work. Fractured Atlas, serving a national community of artists and arts organizations, facilitates the creation of art by offering vital support to the artists who produce it. Reid Farringtons vision for the theater is to bring the cinematic world of film to life on stage. He blends new and old techniques of staging, creates new technologies for production, and explores new aesthetic combinations of living and projected actors. Dickens: The Unparalleled Necromancer is a variation on A Christmas Carol. Dickens story has been adapted into over 70 films spanning over 100 years of cinema. Necromancer will tell that 100 years of film history by using a mash-up technique. A single line from A Christmas Carol will be interpreted through multiple actors from film history, in a cohesive order of various actors from each of the 70 films. Necromancer uses the format of a traditional Victorian magic show, based the idea of Dickens as a magician.

FilmNorth (formerly Independent Filmmaker Project Minnesota), St. Paul, Minnesota, received a grant of $20,000 in support of the Equipment Rental Program and ten free memberships per year, as well as the Training and Professional Development Program, including four scholarships per quarter. The mission of IFP Minnesota is to advance a vibrant and diverse community of independent film and media artists through networking, education, funding, and opportunities for showcasing work. The Equipment Access Program provides low-cost access to quality filmmaking equipment, counsel on production planning, and a digital computer lab with systems and software for video editing, web design, photography, and animation to industry standards. The Professional Development and Training Program encompasses master classes, roundtables, technology training, and business skills development.

NATHAN FISHER received $10,000 for Rebuilding Cold River a verite-style feature-length documentary on the United Nations-led rebuilding of Nahr al-Bared, a Lebanese city that was completely destroyed by the Lebanese Army in a 2007 war. The city was relentlessly shelled for over three months until the entire population of 31,000 civilians fled. The Lebanese Army engaged in the shelling campaign in an effort to root out a dozen or so Islamic militants accused of robbing a bank. More than four years later, Nahr al-Bared has yet to be rebuilt and most of the towns former residents, all Palestinians who were born in Lebanon but do not have Lebanese citizenship, remain scattered in overcrowded tent cities throughout the country. No state on earth considers the 31,000 displaced Palestinians its citizens, which leaves them with the only option of returning to their city to rebuild. This documentary will follow the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) as it supervises the rebuilding of Nahr al-Bared, a monumental effort that involves the construction of apartment buildings, parks, schools, doctors office, shopping centers and so much more.